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News - 11/04/2006
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MacWorld Editors' Notes on the perils of iPod movie-watching
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 MacWorld's Rob Griffiths took his new video-capable iPod on a cross-country flight for his first experience with watching movies on the handheld device and found a few aspects wanting.
As you may have read elsewhere on the site, I’m a speaker on the MacMania V cruise, which is currently wending its way through the Caribbean. To get the embarkation point, I had to travel from the northwest corner of the United States to the southeast—just about as long a journey as one can make within the Lower 48. And until teleportation becomes more than just science fiction, that means spending quite a few hours in aluminum tubes with wings.
Unlike most other long haul flights, however, I was sort of looking forward to the Portland-to-Atlanta leg of my two-hop flight. I knew that legroom would be lacking (it was), the food would be marginal at best (a single “snack box” for a four-hour-plus flight?), and that the person in front of me would recline their seat (they did), removing that precious six-inches of open air space I was actually using. But despite all of that, I was looking forward to the journey. Why?
Because I have a newish video iPod, and I had bought a few movies from the iTunes Store to enjoy during the flight, and this was really going to be my first chance to try out the movie-watching capabilities of my recent purchase. So after takeoff and the climb past 10,000 feet, it was time to test-drive movie watching on the iPod.
I’m not thrilled with the movie selection in the store—only Disney and its studios, and a seemingly limited collection at that. Still, I’d managed to find a few movies that I was interested in—movies that didn’t make my “I want to own that on DVD” cut, but that were still on my “someday, I'd like to see that” list. At the risk of great personal embarrassment, I will reveal that the collection included Flightplan, The Greatest Game Ever Played, and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Given that golf is one of my favorite avocations, I decided to start with The Greatest Game Ever Played.
The movie is the based (somewhat loosely, I’d say) on the story of Francis Ouimet, an unheralded amateur who won the 1913 U.S. Open, defeating Harry Vardon, considered the best player of his generation. (He still holds the record with six British Open victories.) The movie takes you through Francis’ upbringing, culminating with coverage of that 1913 U.S. Open victory. Overall, it was an enjoyable if somewhat formulaic film. But enough about the movie…
How is experience of watching a movie on an iPod? The picture is small, most definitely. But it’s not so small that it’s annoying. Even though I was watching a movie about golf, I usually had no trouble at all spotting the ball in flight. Occasionally, there would be a long shot of a ball on green, and then it was pretty hard to spot the ball. But for the most part, the image and sound were fine—excluding a fairly major problem that I’ll discuss in a bit.
The biggest issue I had was what to do with the iPod itself while watching the movie. I started with the iPod in my right hand, which seemed OK… for a while. After about 10 minutes, though, you realize that while the iPod is light, it’s not particularly light when you’re holding it as a dead weight against the force of gravity. So the I tried setting it on my right leg, but looking down at the screen proved quite uncomfortable for my neck. So down came the tray table, and I set the iPod there. I still had to look down, of course, but the angle was a bit better, so it was more bearable. It still wasn’t ideal, though.
So what did I do? I MacGyvered it! I pulled out a couple of paperback books, my cell phone, and my CD/DVD carrying case (I had brought along some traditional movies as well). Unfortunately, I didn’t snap a picture of the setup—mainly because there wasn’t any way to get to my camera without destroying my creation—so a textual description will have to suffice.
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Source:  MacCentral Online
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